


Nothing Elvish

by mystivy



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-20
Updated: 2010-04-20
Packaged: 2017-10-09 01:36:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/81568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mystivy/pseuds/mystivy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Set in New Zealand, a ranger finds an elf to be a man.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Nothing Elvish

**Author's Note:**

> Set in New Zealand, a ranger finds an elf to be a man.

These are the chirruping woods he walks in. These are the paths he wears through the bracken and ferns, and he finds them every day cut a little deeper by his passing. These same boots he wears as he walks, encrusted with earth and moss. His clothes are clustered with clinging burrs. Today, unusually, it is raining, though it is not cold. It is a thick, summer rain, fat drops rendering the forest reminiscent of a tropical jungle, and when he looks up he expects to see orchids, deadly frogs and bats sheltering under broken-backed leaves.

He sees a thing more exotic. An elf, lacking his locks, clad in the guise of a man. This elf squats neatly between the trunks of a titoki grove, sheltering from the rain, a most un-elvish scowl on his countenance.

The ranger walks closer, unused to intrusion. He crouches close to the elf, who raises his eyes, brown now, and hard. "What ails you, elf boy?" he asks.

The elf scowls further. "It's raining," he observes, as if it is news.

The ranger looks around, taking stock of the dark green of the trees, the sky a mottled grey through their foliage. "Indeed," he says. "Why are you here in such weather?"

The elf shrugs, though the ranger sees his mouth flicker in something of a smile. "I came to see you," he says, his fingers drawing shapes in the dirt.

The ranger would trace the shapes with his eyes except that he is occupied with the elf's face, a single drop of rain on his cheek rolling slowly towards his mouth. "Orlando," he says, his thumbnail under the boy's set jaw, finding his liquid eyes. And he tastes rainwater on his tongue when they kiss awkwardly under the titoki leaves, and when they fall together on the wet earth he smells the hidden smell of moss, the pungent soil beneath, the sharp scent of ferns.

Viggo removes Orlando's clothing and then his own, unafraid of discovery in this thick forest, this hidden place, this solitary arbour among the trees. He feels rain on his back, dripping through the leaves. Orlando tastes human, nothing elvish about the trace of a morning cigarette in his mouth, the bitter flavour of coffee. Nothing elvish about his tanned skin, the tattoo between his hips where Viggo licks and tastes, nothing ethereal in his voice when he murmurs Viggo's name and then calls it louder, his back bare against the earth. Viggo kisses the throat that makes such a sound.

Their coupling is always feverish, sometimes a slow fever lasting for hours, days, sometimes a conflagration of desire such as this that burns itself out in rough strokes and panting breaths, Orlando's shoulders pressed into the ground as Viggo holds him down.

And in the end, between the wet trunks of the titoki trees, when they look into each others' eyes, Viggo finds that they are men, nothing else.

He smiles softly, removing a leaf from Orlando's hair.


End file.
